Jeremiah 27–29

Jeremiah Wears an Ox Yoke

27^*Soon after Josiah’s son Zedekiah became king of Judah, the Lord told me ²to make myself a yoke out of leather straps and wooden crossbars and to put it on my neck. ³Then the Lord told me to send a message^g to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon through their ambassadors who had come to Jerusalem to see King Zedekiah. ⁴The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, told me to command them to tell their kings that the Lord had said: ⁵“By my great power and strength I created the world, the human race, and all the animals that live on the earth; and I give it to anyone I choose. ⁶I am the one who has placed all these nations under the power of my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, and I have made even the wild animals serve him. ⁷All nations will serve him, and they will serve his son and his grandson until the time comes for his own nation to fall. Then his nation will serve powerful nations and great kings.

⁸“But if any nation or kingdom will not submit to his rule, then I will punish that nation by war, starvation, and disease until I have let Nebuchadnezzar destroy it completely. ⁹Do not listen to your prophets or to anyone who claims he can predict the future, either by dreams or by calling up the spirits of the dead or by magic. They all tell you not to submit to the king of Babylonia. ¹⁰They are deceiving you and will cause you to be taken far away from your country. I will drive you out, and you will be destroyed. ¹¹But if any nation submits to the king of Babylonia and serves him, then I will let it stay on in its own land, to farm it and live there. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

¹²I said the same thing to King Zedekiah of Judah, “Submit to the king of Babylonia. Serve him and his people, and you will live. ¹³Why should you and your people die in war or of starvation or disease? That is what the Lord has said will happen to any nation that does not submit to the king of Babylonia. ¹⁴Do not listen to the prophets who tell you not to surrender to him. They are deceiving you. ¹⁵The Lord himself has said that he did not send them and that they are lying to you in his name. And so he will drive you out, and you will be killed, you and the prophets who are telling you these lies.”

¹⁶Then I told the priests and the people that the Lord had said: “Do not listen to the prophets who say that the temple treasures will soon be brought back from Babylonia. They are lying to you. ¹⁷Don’t listen to them! Submit to the king of Babylonia and you will live! Why should this city become a pile of ruins? ¹⁸If they are really prophets and if they have my message, let them ask me, the Lord Almighty, not to allow the treasures that remain in the Temple and in the royal palace to be taken to Babylonia.”

^19–20(When King Nebuchadnezzar took away to Babylonia the king of Judah, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, and the leading men of Judah and Jerusalem, he left the columns, the bronze tank, the carts, and some of the other temple treasures.)

²¹“Listen to what I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, say about the treasures that are left in the Temple and in the royal palace in Jerusalem: ²²They will be taken to Babylonia and will remain there until I turn my attention to them. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

Jeremiah and the Prophet Hananiah

28^*That same year,^h in the fifth month of the fourth year that Zedekiah was king, Hananiah son of Azzur, a prophet from the town of Gibeon, spoke to me in the Temple. In the presence of the priests and of the people he told me ²that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had said: “I have broken the power of the king of Babylonia. ³Within two years I will bring back to this place all the temple treasures that King Nebuchadnezzar took to Babylonia. ⁴I will also bring back the king of Judah, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim, along with all the people of Judah who went into exile in Babylonia. Yes, I will break the power of the king of Babylonia. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

⁵Then in the presence of the priests and of all the people who were standing in the Temple, I said to Hananiah: ⁶“Wonderful! I hope the Lord will do this! I certainly hope he will make your prophecy come true and will bring back from Babylonia all the temple treasures and all the people who were taken away as prisoners. ⁷But listen to what I say to you and to the people. ⁸The prophets who spoke long ago, before my time and yours, predicted that war, starvation, and disease would come to many nations and powerful kingdoms. ⁹But a prophet who predicts peace can only be recognized as a prophet whom the Lord has truly sent when that prophet’s predictions come true.”

¹⁰Then Hananiah took the yoke off my neck, broke it in pieces, ¹¹and said in the presence of all the people: “The Lord has said that this is how he will break the yoke that King Nebuchadnezzar has put on the neck of all the nations; and he will do this within two years.” Then I left.

¹²Some time after this the Lord told me ¹³to go and say to Hananiah: “The Lord has said that you may be able to break a wooden yoke, but heⁱ will replace it with an iron yoke. ¹⁴The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that he will put an iron yoke on all these nations and that they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. The Lord has said that he will make even the wild animals serve Nebuchadnezzar.”

¹⁵Then I told Hananiah this, and added, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you, and you are making these people believe a lie. ¹⁶And so the Lord himself says that he is going to get rid of you. Before this year is over you will die because you have told the people to rebel against the Lord.”

¹⁷And Hananiah died in the seventh month of that same year.

Jeremiah’s Letter to the Jews in Babylonia

29^*I wrote a letter to the priests, the prophets, the leaders of the people, and to all the others whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia. ^2*I wrote it after King Jehoiachin, his mother, the palace officials, the leaders of Judah and of Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the skilled workmen had been taken into exile. ³I gave the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah was sending to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia. It said:

⁴“The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those people whom he allowed Nebuchadnezzar to take away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia: ⁵‘Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them. ⁶Marry and have children. Then let your children get married, so that they also may have children. You must increase in numbers and not decrease. ⁷Work for the good of the cities where I have made you go as prisoners. Pray to me on their behalf, because if they are prosperous, you will be prosperous too. ⁸I, the Lord, the God of Israel, warn you not to let yourselves be deceived by the prophets who live among you or by any others who claim they can predict the future. Do not pay any attention to their^j dreams. ⁹They are telling you lies in my name. I did not send them. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.’

^10*“The Lord says, ‘When Babylonia’s seventy years are over, I will show my concern for you and keep my promise to bring you back home. ¹¹I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.^{k 12}Then you will call to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will answer you. ^13*You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴Yes, I say, you will find me, and I will restore you to your land. I will gather you from every country and from every place to which I have scattered you, and I will bring you back to the land from which I had sent you away into exile. I, the Lord, have spoken.’

¹⁵“You say that the Lord has given you prophets in Babylonia. ¹⁶Listen to what the Lord says about the king who rules the kingdom that David ruled and about the people of this city, that is, your relatives who were not taken away as prisoners with you. ¹⁷The Lord Almighty says, ‘I am bringing war, starvation, and disease on them, and I will make them like figs that are too rotten to be eaten. ¹⁸I will pursue them with war, starvation, and disease, and all the nations of the world will be horrified at what they see. Everywhere I scatter them, people will be shocked and terrified at what has happened to them. People will mock them and use their name as a curse. ¹⁹This will happen to them because they did not obey the message that I kept on sending to them through my servants the prophets. They refused to listen. ²⁰All of you whom I sent into exile in Babylonia, listen to what I, the Lord, say.’

²¹“The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has spoken about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are telling you lies in his name. He has said that he will hand them over to the power of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, who will put them to death before your eyes. ²²When the people who were taken away as prisoners from Jerusalem to Babylonia want to bring a curse on someone, they will say, ‘May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylonia roasted alive!’ ²³This will be their fate because they are guilty of terrible sins—they have committed adultery and have told lies in the Lord’s name. This was against the Lord’s will; he knows what they have done, and he is a witness against them.^l The Lord has spoken.”

The Letter of Shemaiah

^24–25The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, gave me a message for Shemaiah of Nehelam, who had sent a letter in his own name to all the people of Jerusalem and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah and to all the other priests. In this letter, Shemaiah wrote to Zephaniah:

²⁶“The Lord made you a priest in place of Jehoiada, and you are now the chief officer^m in the Temple. It is your duty to see that every madman who pretends…